One more race down today. I ran the Western Pacific Half Marathon today, a great event put on by Brazen Racing. Last year I ran the American River Parkway Half Marathon and got a 10:00 pace. I was very happy with that pace because I was able to run the entire thing, and it was great for my first race. Today I was shooting for something between 9:20-9:30, and that was about right. I ended up with a 9:28 pace and almost a full 7 minutes off my time from last year.
The race went pretty well although I think I may have started off a bit too fast. Right around mile 8, my stomach started gurgling a bit and I thought I was going to have to find a bathroom quick, but I was able to run through it and it went away. I also found that around mile 11, the adrenaline really kicked in – which was helpful naturally. I ended up getting 8th out of 19 in my age bracket (30-34) and with a time of 2:04:05.
So I am doing the Bay to Breakers in a month and then I’m thinking of signing up for the Nike Women’s Half Marathon in October. For this race, I think I’ll switch up to Hal Higdon’s Intermediate training plan, and see if I can’t improve my pace even more. If you want to check out the differences between this year and last year’s half marathons, you can check out the stats below.
